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On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I did it for many reasons
And a cuckoo clock operates the way it does for many reasons.

None of them are the reasons of a clock. If you must manufacture
reasons, then they can only be the reasons of human clockmakers and
human consumers of clocks. It could be said that there are reasons
from the molecular layer as well - of tension, density, and mass.
There are no cuckoo clock reasons though.

> some of them my own.
In other words you have not divulged to others some of the
reasons you acted as you did, and no doubt some of the reasons you
don't know yourself. No matter, they're still reasons.

No, privacy is not the difference. My motives are not only the motives
of cells or species, they are specific to me as well. The cuckoo clock
can't do that. It can't intentionally try something new and justify it
with a reason later.

Anything that can be imagined as occuring before something else can be
called a reason - a butterfly wing flapping can be a reason for a
typhoon. There are countless reasons which can influence me, but I can
choose in many cases to what extent I identify with that influence, or
I can defy all of the influences with a creative approach which is not
random nor predetermined by any particular reason outside of my own.

> Your argument is that grey must be either black or white.

No, grey is a state of being every bit as logical as black or
white, and because it is logical we know that everything is either
grey or not grey.

And free will is every bit as logical as grey. We know that everything
is either voluntary or involuntary. I wouldn't say that, but you would
have to agree to that if you are to remain consistent in your position.

> It's interesting that you bring up Lewis Carroll (as you
have before) as an insult, when actually the Alice books are brilliant
explorations on consciousness and sense-making.

And he was a brilliant satirist on how illogical many of our most
strongly held beliefs are. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson would laugh at
your ideas.

And Richard Phillips Feynman would laugh at your lack of ideas. What
does your opinion of my ideas have to do with anything? If you can't
refute them, just concede. Why claim the dead as your allies against me?

>>> Are your opinions on free will robotic or random?
In either case, would there be any point in anyone else paying
attention to them

>> Point? It sounds like you're asking for a reason, well
such a reason either exists or it does not.

> What do your assumptions about my motives have to do with
anything?

That's a stupid question; if you had motives, regardless of
what they are, then your actions are deterministic.

That's a stupid answer. My question was very specific: "Are your
opinions on free will robotic or random?" You are trying to create a
diversion to cover up that your approach fails the test of its own
limited criteria. If your opinions are robotic or random, then they
don't matter and they aren't opinions. This has nothing to do with me
or my motives.

> What is useful about saying that something 'either exists or
it does not'?

That's an even stupider question, true statements always have
uses.

An even stupider non-answer. Just because a statement is true doesn't
mean it is a useful statement. Even if it were true, you are still
admitting that your edicts of binary mutual exclusivity are no more
relevant than saying anything at all.

> Everything exists in some sense. Nothing exists in every sense.
And with that you abandon any pretense that you want to figure
out how the world works and make it clear that what you really
want to do is convince yourself that what you already want to
believe is in fact true. And its going to work too because if you
take the above as a working axiom in your system of beliefs then
you can prove or disprove anything you want, you can even prove
and disprove the same thing at the same time.

Not at all. I am asserting positively that this is actually the nature
of the world. All forms of proof are relative to the context in which
they are proved.

> According to your views, you don't have any views, and
neither do any possible readers of your views.

That is ridiculous.

I agree, nevertheless it is the inescapable reductio ad absurdum of
your stated worldview.

> All of it is either robotic or random.

What does that have to do with the price of eggs? What does that
have to do with not having views??

Because if your views are robotic or random then they are not views,
they are noise.

Since you mention the price of eggs, lets go with that. The market for
eggs is not automatic, nor is it random. Despite attempts to beat
financial markets using technical analysis alone, such attempts
repeatedly fail because no formula can account for all real world
possibilities. There might be a new egg substitute invented, which no
model can assign a probability for. It isn't random, nor is it
determined by any historical reason except in hindsight.

> I am saying that if you are right, then there is no point
whatsoever for you to ever speak again.

In this context a "point" is a reason, a cause, and If I
choose to speak again I will do so because I have a point to make,
that is to say I will do so for a reason; OR perhaps you're right
and I will speak again but have no point at all, in other words I
will do so for no reason, I will do so at random.

Why would you speak at all? How can you 'make a point'? To whom? Other
random robotic minds? What would the difference be?

> You are trying to wriggle out of it by subjecting anything I
say to the same black and white reductionism

you should be able to understand that visual sense is not an
expression of objective absolutes, but rather a relativistic continuum
of juxtaposition and meta-juxtaposition. This is what I am saying is
happening on every level of consciousness and the cosmos: Realism
derived from multiple channels of sense interpretation. Everything is
true, false, neither true nor false, and both true and false in some
sense.